Google To Diversify Itself By Designating $150 Million On New Recruitment Plans

Around a year ago, Google released a report on how diverse the company truly was. The numbers revealed on said report weren’t so impressive, as the internet-based company, previously recognized as open-minded and diverse, stated that the image everyone had of itself was somewhat different to what the company actually was. Data from January 2014, shown that Google was made up of over 90 percent White and Asian employees, from which around 70 percent were male. Google in that same report said that the company would begin take action into improving how diverse it was; today we see one of the first hints of this statement becoming a reality. The company just announced its plans to invest $150 million over 2015 to recruit more minorities and women, trying to improve the disappointing numbers Google made public last year.

Tech-based companies like Google, have always had trouble being widely diverse, as studies have determined that of every computer science degree in the United States, only 18 percent belong to women; African American and Hispanics make up less than 10 percent of college graduates in the nation. Google had already addressed this and since 2010 donated more than $40 million to computer science organizations working to bring women and girls closer to that area; sadly, as the numbers from 2014 suggest, this still hasn’t worked so well. This year Google will take even more actions and directly recruit employees that will give a more diverse status to the company.

Vice President of people operations at Google, Nancy Lee, published in Google’s Official Blog what the company has done since the previous data was released; Lee stated that over $115 million was spent on diversity since January until the end of last year, this number is to be further increased, as the company now plans to spend over $150 million in programs that will bring minorities and women closer to computer sciences. Nancy Lee declared that this “strategy is extremely long term”, but that she hopes these kind of measures will be better not only for Google but for the whole tech industry. Even if there are some women and minorities taking high positions in tech companies, like Marissa Mayer (current CEO of Yahoo and former Google employee), Sheryl Sandberg, or Hugo Barra, it is still a really small percentage. The whole tech industry has work together and take more steps into diversifying their companies.